New Wii U and 2DS Bundles Announced, Rolling Out in North America this Fall

It may seem a little anticlimactic after today's big news, but for those happy to stick with trusty, old, familiar hardware, Nintendo have lined up a couple of decent bundles for this Fall.

If you're in North America, you can expect some new Wii U and 2DS bundles to arrive on your shores just in time for the Holiday season. The first is the Super Mario 3D World Deluxe Set, which brings together the following: a Wii U console, Super Mario 3D World and Nintendo Land. The bundled games are in physical, boxed form, and we reckon they're a great way to start your Wii U collection – Nintendo Land and Super Mario 3D World received scores of 9 and 10 respectively in our reviews. The bundle has a recommended retail price $299.99, which isn't a bad price at all.

The second Wii U bundle is very similar to the first, except this one is a Walmart exclusive, and it replaces Super Mario 3D World with Mario Kart 8. It also has a suggested retail price of $299.99, and launches in mid-September, just like the first bundle.

Now onto the 2DS bundle. Cheap and cheerful as ever, these bundles feature three differently coloured 2DS systems for you to choose from – Crimson Red, Electric Blue, or Sea Green – along with a download code for Mario Kart 7. This one will be priced at around $129.99.

All in all, these bundles seem like pretty decent value to us; even though they've only been officially announced in North America, we wouldn't be at all surprised if similar bundles appeared in Europe before Christmas rolls around. What do you think – would you pick up any of these bundles at those prices? Let us know in the comments.

User Comments (71)

Now would've been a great time to announce the Smash Bros. 3DS XL bundle for North America, but since it's not announced, I'm not expecting now unless it's announced pretty late. Oh well; I can just wait for the New Nintendo 3DS XL in that case.

@ShanaUnite Especially the Mario Kart one. I know they had that limited bundle already, and it seemed to sell out fast. This bundle is $30 cheaper and includes Nintendo Land. That is minus the wii motion+ and steering wheel of course but it's a better deal IMO.

It should have been Mario Kart 8+Mario 3D World bundle instead of Nintendo Land, sales would do better if it was that way because there would be 2 of the best games on Wii U in one bundle, not that Nintendo Land is a bad game or anything...

The Basic pack with Just dance 2014, wiimote and Nintendo Land is already 150€ here in Italy and the Nintendo Land Deluxe pack is 149-199€. I don't think the new 299€ bundles are enticing at all like the MK8 bundle.

When I got the MK8 DLC on Wednesday, I saw that the expected release date for the first pack is End of November 2014. That made me think Smash U could/should release by then, as having Link makes it the perfect reference. And of course Amiibo.

YES. I've been waiting for the 3D World bundle. I agree with @sinalefa though, it baffles me why Ninty isn't being more creative with the Wii U's in these bundles to milk the hardcore collectors who wouldn't think twice about buying a special edition console. I can just imagine an Orange Wii U with paw prints and little Cat Mario, Peach, Toad, and Luigi scurrying on the gamepad... squee~

@AyeHaley there are always people willing to buy an older model, especially if it seems like a good deal. Some people may wait to get a system just to catch up on older titles or have no interest in newer ones. I don't know if I will get a 3DS, but I'd be the type who would go for an older model as I'm more interested in things like Sega's enhanced retro games like Out Run arcade.

The Wii U bundle is a very good deal around here, I think. Hopefully Nintendo can get the word out to move the units. I'm not the only one, but I've said that the normal Wii U's price point of $299 was a big problem once the PS4 released at $399. Now that Microsoft has come down to the same price as Sony, the Wii U at $399 without any games just wasn't going to appeal to a lot of people who might otherwise be interested. And for those on the fence about the system, those are likely the games to get people to buy it finally. It kind of reminds me of when Sega switched the Genesis pack-in game to Sonic. You have to get the system into people's homes however possible to make good money on the games.

I can't help but feel ripped off. I got a Wii U for $299.99, SM3DW or MK8 for $59.99, and will probably get a amiibo for $12.99, which comes to $372.97. Meanwhile I could have bought this bundle, which comes with another game for just $299.99

the Wii U super mario 3d world would be a great buy for me, even the wal-mart exclusive mario kart 8 bundle would be awesome! good to see nintendo is being smart and releasing great bundles before christmas time.

@Dipper723 That is the price of being an early adopter. Happens with every gaming gen and most tech products in general. You have to decide what is more important to you time or money. Do you want to play when the system comes out or do you want to play for cheaper? I'm sure the xbox one buyers felt the same when the cheaper bundles came out but honestly this is normal.

Personally I'm excited about the bundles as my brother is going to jump in finally. I've had my wiiu since day one and I've more than gotten a return on my investment.

Nice Wii U bundles. However, I think a Bayonetta bundle would be an even smarter move. Releasing a Wii U bundle with both Bayonetta games and either a Pro Controller or Bayonetta Bloody Fate (or both) would be an extremely smart move to convince fans of the first game to bite in order to play the second game.

@rjejr It'll be ready enough to get released, trust me on that. Smash is their big holiday game. One way or another that game will release this year. In fact, I think it was leaked that it's actually releasing in November, which would follow that Cpt Toad will land in December.

@luna-harmonyBundles like this have been around since the 16-bit era. Random game throw-ins during holidays was really hyped during the original Xbox days, and have become a common routine among the big 3.

I've been really enjoying the box art for these bundles. It seems very smart to advertise the games and their artwork, rather than their atmosphere. Honestly, I was frustrated by the bundle art for alot of recent Xbox One bundles. Titanfall and Destiny both seem to hearken back to MW3's bundle art and that doesn't inspire much buying confidence, at least in my opinion.

@iceclimbersA Bayonetta bundle wouldn't accomplish what they set out to do....sell systems. Despite being a great game, the original Bayonetta had very disappointing sales figures. Putting a mediocre selling game with a mediocre selling system in a bundle together is not a successful strategy. Now putting a Grade A title with a mascot that every soccer mom in the world knows about helps moves systems far better. The system's growth depends on big sells now to generate interest, so putting their best hands forward is the only way to go.

@JaxonH - "that it's actually releasing in November, which would follow that Cpt Toad will land in December."

Which would follow HW in Sept and B2 in Oct.

I know @sinalefa has a thing against demos b/c it discourages people from buying the game, Nitnneod must think people have a thing against knowing when games come out, b/c that would be 4 exclusive games - not timed exclusives- 4 months in a row leading up to Christmas. That's very marketable if you ask me. And it's a teenage game - HW, adult - B2, everyone - SSB and kids - Capt. Toad. How can they not market the Wii U better than they are?

@sinalefa - "first pack is End of November 2014. That made me think Smash U could/should release by then"

Thats funny, b/c I and smebody else thought the DLC being in Nov meant SSB wouldnt be out until Dec. I like your way of thinking better though

All this news today has me a bit overwhelmed though, and the sunburn fried my brain, but it does seem wierd they aounce a SSB 3DS bundle while announcing the NEW 3DS. I guess it's a way to get peopel to buy the older version, but it still seems wierd.

@VolcanoFlames I think something similar (a Super Wii U) might be a sharp move to play in 2016. It will still be well ahead of the next-generation and could put the U platform closer to equal footing with Sony and Microsoft in terms of raw power, without Nintendo having to take a loss in profit on hardware sales again. Technology will be cheaper and the "new" system will already have an excellent backwards library.

For me that is the perfect hook. Kids will recognize that blonde guy as the one who also appears in Smash, the rest of us will have all the Link we can handle and his amiibo could be used in 2 games right away.

Shinen lost my purchase of Jett Rocket II because they had a demo. Normally I would have taken the game but got the demo and had enough. Raby Laby 3 had no demo, so I took the plunge. Demos encourage people to be cheap and not spend.

I believe the train of thinking is that as long as you hold back news, you can still make headlines closer to release. And the release date isn't going to actually MATTER until come that month anyways, and it's always a headline grabber.

And I think they're announcing the new 3DS at the same time as the smash 3DS, because all the other rjejr's of the world would have bought the Smash 3DS, then seen the new one announced and said "Why didn't they say something BEFORE the Smash 3DS released!" Am I right though

Some people yes, but you also have a lot of people who WON'T buy a game without a demo first. I'm one of those people. Not all games - MK8 and Pikmin were no brainers having played the first games in the series - but for a $15 DL game I know nothing about like Guacamelle or Shovelknight I really need a demo first.

So it's a matter of how many people do you scare off w/ a demo vs how many sales do you lose to people who won't buy w/o a demo? I'm pretty sure that question can't accurately be answered though.

Then how come they announced DLC for MK8 for NEXT MAY?!?! That's like 10 months in advance. And Pokemon games are always announced 8 motnhs in advance w/ a release month. And every other company in the industry announces game dates months in advance. You can't get pre-order sales w/o a date (Though I'm totally sick of hearing about Destiny. it's Halo w/ a sphere. what's the big deal?)

And I really need a date, as a dad who does 98% of the Chrisitmas shopping (my wife is jewish, not her thing) I need to know what Santa is bringing for me and my 2 kids. And my youngest's birthday is in Jan so I need to know what to wait and get for him. so far on th elist we have HW for both, Skylanders, Captain Toad for all of us, B2 for me, SSB for the entire family, LBP3 on PS3 for the kids. Pokemon for the kids. My oldest birthday is in Sept so he can't get any games for this birthday b/c everything comes out after it

So yeah, dates aren't just dates for me, they matter. Funds are limited, they have to prioritize what to get day 1 and what can wait till later, and you can't properly do that w/o dates. There is a method to my madness.

Because you already know the month. Once you know the month it's coming, then knowing the day won't matter until that month comes. See what I'm saying? Say a game is coming out Nov 12. What good does it do to know it comes on the 12th, until the month of November actually rolls around? You already know it's coming sometime that month, so... Yeah.

Now, it's nice to know the exact date months in advance, but it serves no purpose whatsoever if you already know the month. Except to satisfy your curiosity.

I'm not talking about games with no release window, but games where we already know it's coming in Oct, for example. Or in November. Or whatever. When you do your shopping you'll know the dates by then. They always give us the release dates a month or two in advance, and I couldn't imagine a situation where that's not sufficient. We'll have exact dates long before Black Friday rolls around. In fact, considering we now know Bayo2 is Oct 24, I imagine we'll get a Direct some time in Sept/Oct with info on Smash and Capt Toad.

@JaxonH - Well the month is all well and good, but we still don't know the month for either SSB or Capt Toad, so there's that. And in your example if your birthday is Nov 10th 2 days before the game comes out Nov 12th then you can't have someone hand it to you on your birthday, or your birthday is the 15th then it can be a birthday gift. So the date does matter then too.

Another reason I don't like digital only, doesn't make a nice gift at all. Handing a son or nephew a new game box and watching them look all over the box and then open it and pull out the disc or cartridge and load it up to play beats a GC to wait and DL a game any day.

Oh, here's another reason dates matter - the DDP expires Dec 2014, as per the page:

Expiration Dates
Points will be earned on qualifying purchases until the end of December 2014.
Activation codes must be retrieved from the Deluxe Digital Promotion site by the end of March 2015.
・After the expiration date, please note that Points and unretrieved activation codes will have no value and will be deleted.

So people planning on buying Capt Toad digitally in Europe will be out their 10% because it comes out in Jan. If SSB gets delayed until Jan probably a lot of people will be out 10%. Not a huge deal, I know, but it does kind of matter.

@rjejr Well ya the date matters, but knowing it 6 months in advance as opposed to 2.... Really don't see how that matters any. Again, not saying I don't like knowing well in advance, but as long as they're telling us a month or two in advance, it's all the same.

I wish we could gift digital games. Like on 3DS when you download a game it shows up as a present with a bow. Imagine if you bought your son a few digital games and he woke up Christmas morning, unwrapped all his gifts, then later on when he played his 3DS or Wii U, saw a few gifted games wrapped with bows. That would be really awesome.

@JaxonH - "Well ya the date matters" - 1 for me"but knowing it 6 months in advance as opposed to 2" - 1 for you

I'm calling this one a draw and moving on

For the record, I'm not opposed to digital games, I like digital games and having them ready to play, I just don't want to see boxed games go away. Which I know Nintnedo hasn't done yet, I just got a bit carried away and off topic somehow. But no, having a digital bow isn't the same thing Though I like the idea. At some point in a few years my nephews and kids will be teenagers and won't care about opening gifts, but I still think it's a good thing for kids in general. On the bright side Skylanders, Disney Infinity and amiibo mean we won't be going all digital for awhile anyway. My kids have 40 Skylanders, probably 25 - 30 were gifts.

@rjejr oh I would never buy a digital retail release, but virtual console, indies and digital exclusives... I'm all over it. The thing is there's plenty of digital only games that I want my brother to play. Now, if as want him to try DKC, I can buy him the game for his birthday. But with a digital game, as of right now, all I can do is buy him eShop credit, so there's no way of ensuring he gets that particular game I had in mind for him.

I would never want digital to replace physical either, but, I would like a little more thought put into purchasing digital games. If I could gift 3DS and Wii U games, I'd be spending a LOT more cash on the eShop.

Nice bundles across the board this holiday season. The one thing I like, as a collector, is that Sony with the Destiny bundle and obviously Nintendo provide physical copies of games. I was kind of disappointed the X1 Madden bundle only had a digital code and apparently it's the same for Sunset Overdrive and CoD bundles but still better than nothing.

Coudln't we do that on Wii? Or maybe it's PSN? Or Steam? I swear I've seen that before. Don't most digital games have cards for the DL in stores? I know we bought a Pokemon Rumble U card in GameStop. And I've bought PSN games on Amazon b/c I always have Amazon credit for whatever reason.

Checked, no DL on Amazon. You can buy a DL code on Gamestop and email it someone, but it does look like that's only retail games, not DL only games, here's Guacamelee as an example:

Maybe in a year or 2, Nintendo has been moving forward lately, I'll give them that.

You know, if EA and some other 3rd parties like Ubi hadn't abandoned Nintnedo Wii U just might be crushing the competition right now. but for it's great line-up this year and next it's sitll missing Destiny, Madden and AC FOR NO REASON. (I say no reason from a technical standpoint, meaning if PS3 and Xbox360 can run it, so can Wii U. I'm not so sure about X1/4 games so I'll give them a pass. But they are very few and far between, even MGS is going to the old consoles.)

And you know what, maybe any 1 of those games wouldn't sell b/c gamers would just buy them on the other consoles, but if Wii U had Madden, FIFA, Destiny, and AC on par/time w/ last gen, Wii U would sell more, and so would those games. A lot more. But I cant really say I blame anyone, well maybe EA, for not being first.

@rjejr It's a catch 22. The current fanbase isn't interested enough in those types of games to sustain more than 100k, maybe 200k sales each, so they don't bring the games, but without the games, you can't expand the base to include those who look for those games when buying a console. One of those situations where those potential gamers won't come without the games, but the games won't come until the gamers are part of the base. And that can pretty much be said for most third-party games.

It is what it is though. I'm just glad Nintendo offers a real, viable alternative to the other consoles. Lower price, innovative gameplay styles and most importantly, a different library of games. Yeah it would be better if it had more mass-market third-party games, but that horse has been beaten to death. Like I said it is what it is. Can't really blame them when the games aren't selling and making them a profit.

And come to think of it I do remember seeing download cards available at GameStop. I still think it would be nice if you could just buy them on the eShop and gift them if you know that person's NNID. Only place I've ever seen that before is on iPhone and iPad. I've never tried it but I'm pretty sure you can't do that on PS4 or X1. Steam, I don't know because I'm not a PC gamer, but it sounds like something you could probably do.

@JaxonH - ""Why didn't they say something BEFORE the Smash 3DS released!" Am I right though "

Jax my man (have you seen Wreck it Ralph?) I have a good story for you.

Went to Applebees last night for dinner (kids eat free) and 2 kids at the table next to us were playing on their 3DS XLs that their mother said they just got recently (I didn't tell her about the New ones, not bringing that anguish on a family I dont know.). Those big screens looked SO MUCH better than my wife's 3DS I had been messing around w/ earlier, and I remembered I was going to buy 1 for my birthday but I bought a new Tab 4 instead. And then I thought man, dodged a bullet, would have killed me to buy 1 in July to have that New 3DSn* announcement in Aug. (just like last years Wii U price drop they said wouldn't happen right after I bought my Wii U). And I almost wrote this at dinner b/c you were so right, but decided it could wait until this morning.

So yeah, good thing Nintendo let me know, no SSB old bundle for me this Christmas. Now everybody go out and buy a Wii U while we wait Next birthday it is.

3DSn* - the n stands for new, NFC and nipple (2nd stick) and it should look like an inverted u from Wii U.

@rjejr I guess if you think about it though, there really isn't a good time to release a new version. No matter when you announce it, there's gonna be people who bought a console in the last 6 months. All they can do is give advance warning, though the longer they give us the more it hurts their sales.

So yeah, Idk. My policy is buy day one, and upgrade every time. But if you aren't gonna do that, it's best to buy immediately after a revision, because they revise every 18 months like clockwork

Yeah, either right after a revision or a price drop In this case it's the revision, b/c whether I like it or not - I didn't like the mono or lack of folding on 2DS, I don't like the switch to microSD on 3DSn - but as my wife likes to say, it is what it is, and this is the revision.

IDK about day 1, it depends what day that is. And I'm not being a jerk, I at least need to know what quarter, you gotta give me that. If its late spring I may wait for my birthday, if its Feb or Mar it might be day 1.

Not a peep out of me about Zelda U in 2015 as I don't expect it in 2015 anyway. Whenever that releases it sells whatever it's gonna sell. Hardware, software, amiibo, competition, Christmas, 4th of July, it doesn't matter, that sells what it sells when it goes on sale.

I'm ready for anything now, hooked up an old 120GB external HDD today. It's probably on it's last legs so I'm going to have to figure out how to back up my save files internally or on a thumbdrive, but it's there and functioning now.

Beat Last of Us and the Gone Home DLC, then tried Metro Redux and lost interest a little bit. So I busted out 3D World, tried Champion's Road for about an hour, still couldn't beat that stage... So I'm back into Skyward Sword again, beat the Earth Temple, now I'm in Lanayru Desert, ready to start exploring next time I play.

I think when I finish Skyward Sword, I'm going to play Metroid Prime 3: Corruption again. Its been 7 years since I beat that game, even longer since I beat the first 2. But Idk, Ive been getting that itch lately. That Metroid Prime itch. The 2nd is my fave, but for some reason I've been dying to play the third. I just loved the motion integration. Granted, the trilogy has motion controls for the first two games also, but the third game takes it a step further with the grapple beam and stuff like that. Idk, maybe I'll start with the first game and play through the trilogy. We'll see.

Gotta be honest though, that Wii backlog belongs in a museum. Some of the funnest and finest games I've ever played. Skyward Sword, Metroid Prime- I'm also playing Ocarina of Time on 3DS. After that, well, I was gonna say Fire Emblem Path of Radiance on Gamecue then Radiant Dawn on Wii, or, maybe Mario Galaxy, but by that time Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta 1, Bayonetta 2, Smash and Captain Toad will be out. So I guess those games will have to wait until we get some more downtime between releases.

@JaxonH - " tried Champion's Road for about an hour, still couldn't beat that stage..."

You can't be my hero if you can't beat a stage in a 3D Mario game

My kids have done everything except the mystery house w/ 30 levels. They got stuck once at 28 and have had trouble getting past 25 since. I started playing Dragon's Crown last night. My kids want to play it after school but I'm still on the fence due to the excessive skin, and bouncing. We'll see. Tonight I return to Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite on PS3. And maybe Xenoblade.

@rjejr But that level is BRUTAL lol... It's the one before the mystery house. So hard, I'll get it eventually. I tried mystery house, got 15 but haven't tried again. Not bad for a quick run through I suppose.